Beautifully Dark Places: Sand in an Hourglass
by waywardprincess
Summary: It's been a hundred years since Nolan left, and more than the scenery has changed. The portal to Earth has been opened to the general public, and with the evolving of society comes the blossoming of people who want watch it burn. Earth's vulnerable to magic and the majority of its population is still oblivious to it. To make matters worse, its heroes are a group of B-team Wizards.
1. Prologue

**Sand in an Hourglass  
**Introduction  
_One Week Prior_

* * *

"In every end, there is also a beginning."

― Libba Bray, _A Great and Terrible Beauty_

* * *

Georgia is home to many places and things: science centers, botanical gardens, scenic highways, and everything else you could ever expect to find in the South. One of those things is a small, four-bedroom country house with a leaky roof and squeaky floor boards that cannot be found on any tourist guides. This house is a home to various species of spiders that continuously weave webs in the corners of its rooms and possibly some termites that munch on the old wood supports of the floor.

There's a million little things to see here: worn paths at the end of the driveway where the bus stops to pick up the kids every morning and let them off every afternoon, a faded pastel mailbox that only seems to collect bills and junk mail, and even a willow tree that appears to be the best hiding spot for both birds and hide-and-seek participants. There's a streak of spray paint on the front porch that appears to have been scrubbed until it's just a few shades darker than the wood.

Inside the front door awaits the kitchen, clean but lived in. The refrigerator is a bulletin board of crayon-drawn stick people and sticky notes. There's a thin cloud of smoke from the pie burning in the oven and the shrill screech of the fire alarm mounted to the wall, which is accompanied by an annoyed sound from the living room. A few moments later, the timer on the dark-stained wood counter dings.

It's a normal home, imperfect and flawed. But, it isn't just some house.

This is the home of Kymma and Nolan Gates and their three children.

The squeak of worn down brakes cuts through the sound of the fire alarm that Nolan is currently waving a dish cloth at in agitation. The clock above the stove reads '3:00' and signal that the sound of brakes and laughter outside is probably the children returning from school. Finally, the alarm is shut off and the house is once more immersed in silence.

"I'm pretty sure you could burn water." Kymma laughs from the doorway, arms crossed as she shakes her head.

"I followed the directions!" Nolan's eyes are narrowed, but there's a hint of playfulness in his voice.

"Really?" Kymma shakes her head, picking up the paper that sat on the counter. "Did you turn the temperature down after the first thirty minutes?"

"I… Well… That seemed like it'd take longer so…"

"Then you _didn't _follow the directions."

"I just wanted some pie!"

"Pie?" Gabriel, the youngest of the two's children, asks with hope glimmering in his eyes as the front door opens the rest of the way. Aedan, the middle child who was quick to correct anyone that he was now _fifteen_, stepped in after him as he ran his fingers through his dirty-blond hair. Ashley, the eldest of the three with a year on Aedan, enter in behind her younger brother. Aedan's too busy texting to notice the conversation being held between the three and makes a B-line for his room upstairs. Ashley glares at her brother before she starts digging through her backpack for that night's homework. She always does it ahead of time.

"Dad burnt it," Kymma smiled sadly. Gabriel poked his bottom lip out and crossed his arms over his chest. The woman shook her head and picked up the small boy, turning to her husband—who had cut himself a piece of the burnt pie and was stuffing his face with it—with a small shrug. "…But I guess you can have some anyway."

"Burnt doesn't mean inedible!"

"Mom, why did you even marry him?" Aedan had returned from his room to grab a drink, but was currently stopped at the counter with an incredulous look on his face.

"Because I'm irresistible." Nolan grinned, earning himself an eyeroll from Kymma and Ashley and a disgusted look from his eldest son.

"Because he couldn't cook and I was afraid he'd starve to death."

"You know, I don't think you ever told us how you two even met." Ashley comments from over her math homework, leaning back against the back of her chair beside the small table in the kitchen. Nolan and Kymma exchange quick looks.

"It's a boring story." Nolan shrugs after a few seconds of hesitation.

"Wait, wait, let me guess, you two nerds met at some Shakespeare convention, didn't you?" Aedan grins, opening the fridge door and fetching himself a drink. He popped the tab as he watched the two carefully.

"Shakespeare?" Nolan raises an eyebrow before he looks over at Kymma.

"Romeo and Juliet."

"Oh, _that _Shakespeare."

"Hey, guys, what's the date?" Ashley interjects, glancing between the faces of her family members.

Suddenly, Nolan looks crestfallen. "It's the fifteenth." Kymma glances over at him with a sad, knowing smile before she sets Gab back down. She crosses the few steps between them and wraps her arms around him silently. Nolan stands motionless for a few moments before he wraps his arms around her in return and kisses the top of her head. Gabriel squishes himself between the two, hugging his father's stomach.

"Group hug!" Gab squeals with a giggle, the perfect exclamation for a six year old.

"Nah," Aedan waves a hand before Ashley grabs him by the wrist and pulls him over to the rest of the small family. They stand around in the kitchen, hugging each other for what was only a matter of minutes before they returned to their normal everyday activities. Except, one thought lingered in the parents' minds.

Today was the twentieth anniversary of the day the portal between Earth and Wizard City opened for the final time.

* * *

**Introductions: short, sweet, and not-so-to-the-point. Anyway, I've got _most _of the characters I need to get this thing going! It was brought to my attention that you can't post on the forum if you don't have an account and I know a lot of the reviewers are anonymous. So, if you want to submit a character then give me the basics about them and I'll see what role they fit! :D **


	2. Crazy is Not a Nice Word

**Sand in an Hourglass  
**Chapter 1  
_Crazy is Not a Nice Word  
_

* * *

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"

_Albert Einstein_

* * *

The sky outside the second story bedroom had barely warmed up to the orange glow of dawn when Ashley flings the covers off herself. Any other day, this would have been normal: a teenager scrambling to get ready for school at six in the morning. Strangely, it was Saturday and the Gates family wasn't aware of their eldest daughter having any plans for the day. In fact, Ashley very rarely had plans _any _day. At the most, her nights were reserved for watching the constellations off the patio, but the stars were barely visible at this time of day.

Today, though, was a very important day. Possibly the most important day of her young life.

Tutoring wasn't _fun_; if anything, it was annoying. Unless, of course, the person being tutored happened to be the most popular guy in the whole school and certainly the best looking. Who better to help him with his science homework than the only person in class who could recite all the constellation names by heart? No one, that's who.

It took a whole twenty minutes for Ashley to get dressed. Fifteen would normally be plenty of time, but the extra five gave her time to apply some mascara and hope it didn't look to gloppy. She'd never been one for makeup, but it wasn't that she thought she didn't need it. Ash had always been more intrigued with intelligence than looks (_but _she _was _a teenager and wasn't an exception to hormones; she noticed looks from time to time). She didn't bother trying to fix her unruly hair, and made a mental note to point out to her father that she owed ninety percent of her bad hair days to his genes. Ash's hair was naturally wavy, but was quick to curl up unpleasantly when it hit humidity. Living in Georgia meant that it was practically _always _curled up.

The dark haired girl plucked her science textbook off her dresser as she exited her room. She was skilled enough to awkwardly hop down the stairs while trying to pull her tennis shoes on without tripping and breaking a bone or two. Aedan, who was walking up the stairs with a cup of coffee in hand, stopped mid-step to blink at her in confusion. His head cocked sideways in a silent question; a habit he had picked up from their father as a small child.

"I've got a tutoring thing." She stated quickly, pulling the back of her right shoe on as she passed him on the stairs.

"On a Saturday? Who wants to do school stuff on the weekend?"

"Kenneth Cooper?"

"—_Oh_, so you've got a _date_?"

"It's not a _date_, it's a tutoring thing." She raised her science book up defensively. Aedan simply rolled his eyes and started back up the stairs.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" He called down in a sing-song voice.

"I don't think there's anything you _wouldn't _do."

"I wouldn't do meth." He paused at the top of the stairs to take a sip of his coffee. Ash frowned and rolled her eyes, waving her hand to him in farewell. He shrugged and leaned against the railing. "Seriously, be… uh… _careful_ with him."

"Yeah, balancing equations is so _dangerous_. Livin' on the wild side today, huh, Ash?" Nolan's voice made the girl jump slightly, nearly dropping her book on her toe. She blinked over to him with a confused look.

"What?"

"You okay?" Her father had gone from wearing a joking look to a very worried one faster than she had time to comprehend. "You look like you didn't sleep."

"What's new?" She smiled sadly. It was true; she had only managed to sleep a few hours the entire night, and most of that occurred in the early morning than the actual night. It'd been like that for some while now, though. They'd been to different doctors across the state, and the most they could give her was a diagnosis of insomnia and a prescription that tasted like chalk. Sometimes, the medicine worked and she'd sleep a whole, glorious eight hours. Other times, she'd toss and turn and wake up with three or four.

"It's getting worse again, isn't it?"

"I'll be fine, Dad." She nodded quickly, squeezing her textbook closer to herself. "It's… it's not _real _noticeable, is it?"

Nolan looked confused for a moment; he wasn't used to hearing her ask him anything about her appearance. "Not really. Who's this guy, anyway? You never worry about anything like that."

"No one important." She waved the question away.

"He's the quarterback on the football team!" Aedan's voice echoed from upstairs, followed by the sound of snickering.

"Not one of _those _guys." Nolan sighed, crossing his arms at his daughter. "Why don't you stay home? We'll go get some ice cream or something-"

"-_Dad._"

"Fine, fine." He sighed in defeat, holding his hands up. "_But _I want you home by lunch."

"Thanks!" Ashley grinned, hugging him quickly before she darted toward the front door and unhooked the family car's keys from the holder by the door. With a quick wave, she turned to head to the car with a grin plastered to her face.

"_No kissing or you're grounded for as long as you live!"_

* * *

The air in the café was thick with the robust smell of coffee and bacon. Ashley was seated in the booth closet to the back of the dining area with an anxious expression painted on her pale face. She turned the page in her text book with the hand that didn't support her head. Her eyes moved between staring down at blurring words and into the depth of the mug in front of her, which contained the only substance known to man to keep an insomniac teenager half-awake.

"More?" Ash lifted her head, eyebrows furrowed delicately at the uppity waitress who was holding out a coffee pot. The girl popped her gum as she waited for an answer and bounced her foot slightly to an inaudible beat. Ashley simply nodded, watching as the woman poured the dark liquid back into her mug. She'd never really liked the taste of coffee; it was too bitter for her liking and she made up for it with a pound of sugar and more cream than actually coffee.

"Thanks," the teenager nodded with a half-hearted smile before she returned her gaze to the passage she'd read over and over. Ash had read this section over and over; the textbook didn't offer much on String Theory, and the one passage was about as much as she had access to without walking across town to the library. From what she understood, just that one passage had been a huge commotion since String Theory couldn't be proven and therefore shouldn't be taught to 'children'. Her teacher had kindly skipped over it in class. She found it fascinating, though; anything that meant there could be other dimensions was always something she'd reading.

With a sigh, she took a sip from the mug and then made a disgusted face. As the bell above the front door rang, she busied herself with poured more than an ample amount of cream into the cup and grabbed a few packets of fake sugar from the box to her left. She glanced up hopefully as she stirred the mixture, but her face fell when she realized Kenneth still hadn't arrived. She checked her watch quickly.

He was seventeen minutes late… that wasn't _too _bad, was it?

Ash turned the page in the book, running her fingers over the crisp, white pages before letting her hand fall back into her lap. The chatter in the café increased significantly, but she paid it no attention and leaned closer to her book. She'd read over this chapter a thousand times, but she'd never seen this entry. It was something about wormholes and interdimension theories—all things she understood more or less—but it seemed… off. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"You look pretty down." Ash nearly knocked her cup over she jumped so hard, eyes locking onto the individual—or, rather, individual_s_-sitting across from her. The one closest to the window, which was the one who had spoken, was staring at her with his hands clasped on the table in front of him. He didn't appear to be very tall; he probably had a few inches on her, though, not that she minded that. Ash had gotten pretty used to having everyone tower over her. His spiky, dark hair might have added those extra inches, though.

Ash looked between the brown eyes of the boy and the periwinkle of the girl who sat beside him. "Um…" She glanced behind her, as if she thought the boy might have been talking to someone else, before she turned back to them. "Do I know you?"

"Probably not." The girl smiled, pink lips pulling her cheeks higher on her face. Ash felt a brief pang of jealously at the near flawlessness of the girl, though she shook it away quickly. "But, you don't know anyone before you get to know them."

"You look like you're waiting on someone." The boy blinked as he spoke. _Perceptive, aren't we? _Ashley sighed slightly before taking another sip of her coffee.

"Kinda," she shrugged, flipping the page now that she didn't have time to read it. Maybe if she looked busy they'd go away.

"Is it a date?" The girl looked like she might clap, but instead settled for running her hand over the table as if she was wiping something off of it. "I always liked dates. They seem fun."

The boy gave her a brief, questioning look before he turned back to Ashley, who's face had dropped slightly. "So, how late is he?"

_That_ made her wonder slightly, but she shook the question away. He couldn't have any idea what was going on, much less the fact that Kenneth was terribly late. She glanced at the watch on her arm once more, but said nothing. Instead, she swallowed and picked her head up. "I don't know who you are. You should probably go."

The two exchanged quick glances, almost like her parents looked at each other when they were trying to figure out where Aedan had disappeared to in the night. The boy was the first to speak: "You must have just gotten out of Ravenwood since you haven't picked up on the auras yet. You had your training, right?"

There was a long stretch of silence. The boy looked genuinely curious as the girl inspected one of the extra packets of sugar that Ash had discarded on the table; Ashley was busy looking between the two as if they might have escaped from the psych ward at the hospital down the street. Her face also resembled that of a banker who was trying _not _to look like they were fixing to press the panic button under the counter.

"I'm sorry, Ravenwood? Training?"

"Maybe she's from Pigswick." The girl waved the packet, shaking the sugar inside it.

"Pigswick only admits nonhumanoids, you know that."

"Uh, okay." Ashley placed her hands on the table, palm down. "If you guys are lost, the hospital is just a few blocks down. Big building, you can't miss it."

"We're not hurt," the girl smiled again.

"Hmm," the boy blinked over at the girl, before he placed his hand on her arm and jerked his head in the direction of the door. "We've got things to do, remember?" The girl nodded before waving to Ashley and sliding out of the booth, red hair swishing behind her as she walked away. The boy turned back for a moment, glancing from the textbook to the coffee and back to Ashley. "Just an FYI, if a guy's more than fifteen minutes late, he's not coming. You might as well waste that time on someone who deserves it."

Ashley stared at him in confusion as he slid out of the booth and followed the girl out. She glanced around the café, hoping someone besides herself had noticed how strange that had been. The old man who was sitting at the bar had barely moved a muscle since she last looked up. The college kids in the corner opposite her where still leaned over the shoulder of their friend, watching a video on someone's IPad. The dark haired frowned back at her coffee, which she had barely taken a sip out of since it had been poured.

Ashley glanced at her watch. It'd been nearly thirty minutes. She closed the textbook, fished a few dollars out of her purse and laid it on the table, and finally stood up to leave. Outside, the sun had finally risen to peak over the top of the trees and bathe the town in yellow.

Maybe the rest of the day would go by without crazy strangers and stood-up study sessions.

* * *

**Well, this took longer than expected! My laptop died and I got stuck writing this out on paper. Just got to write it up and publish it today, so yay! Anyway, I need to answer some reviews so here:**

**BuBuWinter: I hope you realize that you're a member of the group of people that keeps me writing these. I _love _constructive criticism and I never really seem to get it on these, but you never disappoint! (P.S. is Krim ooc because I kept getting conflicting feelings from her. One minute I'd feel like she was being quiet and biting her nails from the anxiety of someone she'd never met sitting across from her but I also knew she's optimistic so I felt like she'd be kinda bubbly too. Wrong or right?)**

**DeathlySophia: Omg Aedan is such a little player. If he was real I'd put him in a corner and make him write sentences ahaha**

**x Desert Rose x: I know! I actually was thinking about doing a little short about them between BPD and SiaH, but I'm undecided.**

**Ninjacookie208: ! I don't think I've ever been an inspiration to anyone! *sends you flowers* omg cry**


	3. Fate's a Funny Thing

**Sand in an Hourglass  
**Chapter 2  
_Fate's a Funny Thing  
_

* * *

"Do you ever wonder why things have to turn out the way they do?"

― _Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember_

* * *

Matthew's view had been significantly redder since he left Wizard City. Specifically, it was a deep red that lightened slightly as climbed up the curled tendrils of the girl who refused to walk at an even pace's hair; not to mention the blinding shades of blocked red she wore on her shirt. Krim had always walked at a faster pace, not that there was anything wrong with that. It was better than she walked ahead of him, anyway, since no one would compare their height if she was a good three or four feet in front of him. Hopefully.

Matthew sipped on the milk carton he'd grabbed before they left the café; silently still trying to piece together who the girl had been. She didn't seem odd to him, but he wasn't exactly the best person to judge Earth kid's personalities. Not that he'd say that out loud.

"You're being quiet. Bad things happen when you start thinking too hard." Krim's soft, almost sing-song voice floated back to him as she glanced over her shoulder. He opened his mouth to argue, but closed it and frowned when she shrugged and turned forward. It wasn't a _lie_; the last time he'd thought too hard on Eath the grass had started turning from green to brown. He'd never seen anything like it before, but didn't get to ask the Headmaster before they were assigned to this task.

Matthew rubbed the back of his head and yawned: "Yeah… Well, I wasn't thinking about anything _bad_. Just trying to figure out who that girl was."

"I thought she was a wizard? She had an aura." Krim paused, turning her whole body to face him as she continued shaking the sugar packet she'd picked up from the café. He frowned, glaring up at the three or four inches the girl had on him before he simply looked away.

"I don't know. I've never met a wizard who didn't know what Ravenwood is."

"Maybe she's not from Wizard City." Krim smiled thoughtfully. "There's a lot of worlds in the Spiral."

"Yeah, but how many of those worlds are inhabited by _people_?" Matthew shook his head and started walking again. Krim turned and took several large steps to catch up with him. Thankfully, the sidewalk wasn't too crowded, or they'd either be getting stepped on or stepping on others.

"Where're we going, Matt?"

Honestly, he had no idea. They hadn't gotten any leads on the missing girl since they got the task of finding her, and the only wizard they'd met practically told them they were crazy before sending them away. "You think she knows something?"

"Still stuck on her?" Krim grinned, glancing sideways at him as she tossed the sugar packet up and caught it.

Matthew shot her an annoyed look and bit his tongue. "I'm not _stuck _on her. I'm stuck trying to figure out what her deal is."

"It's possible, but she didn't really seem like the kidnapping type to me." Krim laughed, pushing her hair behind her ear before running her fingers through her bangs.

"I don't think there is a kidnapping _typ_—" Matthew was cut off by Krim grabbing his arm and nodding to the sky to their right, just above the line of buildings. Off in the distance, the sky was discolored. It wasn't the kind of discoloration one might see after a bad thunderstorm; it was a very unnatural color. It looked a bit like someone had ripped a hole in the sky and bared the Spiral to the oblivious humans that inhabited the large rock. Matthew's jaw set as he nodded. "Let's go check it out."

"A-are you sure that's a good idea?" Krim's look of happiness faded like a chalk drawing in the rain, and was quickly replaced by a look of fear and insecurity. She had never been someone who liked fighting—at least, not with Necromancy—and the idea of the unknown was terrifying. Matt paused, several paces ahead of where she stood with one hand on her chin, absentmindedly chewing her fingernail as she stared at him. He sighed, as if this was the fifteenth time she'd said this.

"Of all the people in the _entire _Spiral, Ambrose…" He muttered childishly, low enough so that she wouldn't hear. Slowly, he turned to look at her, a fake look of annoyance on his face. "Come on, you're a Necromancer, whether you like it not."

"It's not that. This is just… dangerous."

"Yeah, being alive is dangerous." He snorted, waving for her to follow him as he weaved his way between the buildings that lined the sidewalk, squeezing between two of them before he finally glanced back to see if she was following him. Krim nodded slowly, hands clenched at her sides as she wiggled between the tight gap in the buildings. Thankfully, the tiny alley opened up after a few feet to a fenced smoking area for the chefs in the restaurant to the left. Matt wasted no time, pulling himself up on the large, wooden privacy fence to get a better look at the sky.

The discoloration was far to their right, way beyond the stores that lined the edge of the sidewalk. The problem was that distance is deceptive on foot, and it'd take them quite a while to walk that far. Maybe half an hour if they walked insanely fast. Matt glanced down at Krim, who was leaned against the fence and watching the alley. He frowned slightly. When he first met Krim, she was just another Necromancer he knew he'd be competing with to be the best; someone to stand in his way. He didn't see her much between the time he first started (he was about thirteen when he was allowed to actually start training) and a few days ago.

She'd grown up quite a bit, too, in those three years. He could remember noticing her once or twice during class and wondering how someone's hair could be so puffy, but now it was tame and shinier than it had ever been. Krim almost looked doll-like now. Still, looks aside, he'd expected her to be much more aggressive and _out there_, but the most he'd seen was nervous habits and optimistic views. "Hey, you coming or what?"

Krim blinked, periwinkle eyes wide in confusion as she snapped out of her own thoughts. She nodded after a moment and hoisted herself up the fence, grabbing his shoulder for support as she rocked slightly. "Why are we standing up here?"

"You see that?" Matt pointed to the rift in the sky.

"The black thing? Yeah. Why?"

"It looks like a portal. I bet some idiot's trying to open their own. C'mon; we're going to go see who's stupid enough to try something like that." Matt swung himself down, boots making a loud _thud _as he hit the crumbled concrete below. The pathways back here look as if no one ever walked on them, which would make sense since there wasn't much to see aside from trees and grass. The country was always so barren looking to Matt, who was more used to seeing monsters around every corner than another pine tree.

"Why don't you go ahead and I'll catch up?" Krim asked from where she was still perched on the fence. She turned her head sideways, questioning.

"Sure, and I'll be happy to take you share of the reward, too."

"Fine,"

* * *

After a long, drawn out period of trekking through undergrowth and trees, Matthew realized the portal in the sky was opened over a clearing in the woods. Krim stayed several paces behind him, glancing back and forth like a frightened child lost in the woods. Unfortunately, the large hole in the sky wasn't helping her anxiety, and sucked the sunlight out of the area beneath it. The farther they walked, the darker it got.

"Do you… Do you think it's much farther?" The red head questioned, before she frowned and fixed her eyes on the dirt below her moving feet. She stuck out in the darkness, like a flame on the darkest of nights. Matthew blended in much better, with both people and the growing dimness of the woods. Krim dressed a bit too colorful for Earth taste.

"I can't tell." The boy ducked below a low hanging branch, and then glanced behind him to see if the girl was keeping up. He nearly jumped when he realized she was now following very close behind him—it was a miracle she hadn't stepped on his heels yet—and had her arms wrapped around herself. He hesitated, but then opened his mouth to speak: "Are you o—"

_Bam! _Something hit him in the shoulder so hard he staggered to the left, clutching it as he whirled around to confront whatever idiot had hit him. Instead, he found himself face to face with the girl from the café. Although, this time, she looked incredibly pissed off. In her left hand she clutched a long, silver shaft with a black square on the bottom that looked as if it was once attached to something. That something was lying at her feet, split into two pieces and surrounded by shattered bits of plastic.

"I _knew _you were crazy!" Ashley roared, face turning slightly red from her increased blood pressure. Matthew glanced sideways at Krim, confusion riddling his features. She'd run into him, so didn't that make herthe crazy one?

"_You _ran into _me_." Matt pointed out, eyebrows furrowed as he rolled his now aching shoulder. "I think you dislocated my arm with that _thing_, too."

Seemingly unaffected by his injury, Ash bent down to collect the broken pieces of the instrument and glared up at him. "There's a freaking vortex in the sky during a completely cloudless day and you break my telescope. This could be the biggest story in science in _years_, and you broke my telescope."

"Sorry, I've kind of got bigger things to worry about. Like, how someone could open a portal in the sky."

Ashley ignored him, standing up and continued toward the clearing the vortex was centered over. "This has to be a wormhole, but a wormhole would have more suction than this. I don't really understand."

"Who do you think opened it?" Krim spoke quietly from behind Matt, blinking innocently at Ash. The other girl turned to give her a look of confusion.

"God? It's a natural phenomenon. No one 'opened' it."

"But, Matt said it's a portal."

"It _is _a portal. Earth just didn't know what to call it, or what it did. They don't have magic, remember?"

"Magic?" Ash cackled, shoulders shaking from the ferocity of her laugh. "Magic is impossible. The closest thing anyone has to magic is Alchemy, and that's a purely science based theory."

"So, you're not a wizard?" Krim hugged herself tighter as she spoke, taking a small step away from her as she glanced at Matt. He shook his head subtly.

"There's no such thing as wizards. That's a myth; you've been reading too many children's stories."

"I'm a wizard." Matt shot back defensively. The sound of leaves crunching under their feet was the only sound in the silence that filled the next few minutes. Ash took several noticeable steps away from the two, and her grip on the upper half of her telescope tightened.

"Sure you are." She didn't look at them, and instead kept her gaze strictly ahead of her. "Prove it then. Make yourself disappear."

"That's not really in my set of skills." He looked more annoyed than anything. Krim sped up and pushed through the large gap between them, hiding behind a large oak tree at the edge of the clearing, waving at them to hush. Matthew closed his mouth to stop the next comment from falling out and crouched beside one of the trees. He peered around the bark covered edge to see three people standing in the center of what looked to be an old park. Unfortunately, it was too dark for him to make out their details. Villains were meant to wear all black outfits, complete with oversized trench coats, and peer at you through too dark sunglasses. These people looked like normal Earthlings; they wore simple clothes without any bright school colors or unnecessary bags on their belts.

Ash blocked his view as she marched her way into the clearing, head held high as she waved to the people. "Hey! Are you guys _seeing _this? Do you have a camera? This needs to be videotaped; no one is going to believe this! I can hear the scholarship offerings now!"

The one in middle raised his head. He didn't appear to be too much older than any of the three; possibly in his twenties or so. The first thing Matthew noticed was that the man wasn't very heavyset; if anything, he was pretty lanky. The only girl in the clearing was standing off to the side, but whirled around when Ashley spoke to them. She was average height—taller than Matthew, at least—and didn't look too threatening. She _did _look slightly unnerving, though, with her board straight, blindingly white hair and owl-like eyes. The third person didn't move as Ash spoke. Instead, he simply vanished, leaving a small tornado of wind behind him that caught the leaves that littered the ground and swirled them up for a moment.

Ashley froze, hand in midair from where she had been waving at them. The shaft of her telescope fell to the ground. Time seemed to move slower all of a sudden. Matt was suddenly aware of his slightly quickened breath, the sound of blood roaring in his ears, and the absolute quiet of the clearing. The man turned to face the three (although he only knew one of them was there) and pulled someone around that had been concealed in front of him, the girl reached for what could only be her wand hidden at the small of her back, and Ashley picked her foot up to turn back to Matt and Krim. The person that the man pulled around had a black covering over their head, but that didn't muffle their voice.

"Help me!"

"Mary?" Krim called from behind the tree, panic written all over her face. Matthew pushed himself forward, yanking a small shaft of wood from his belt as he stood. Krim hesitated but followed closely behind him, wand pointed forward at them. Matt froze as he realized that the enchantment he'd put on the wood didn't trigger as it should. Normally, putting pressure on the middle of it activated the charm on it that forced it to stretch into the staff that he normally carried. This time, nothing happened.

It was silent; Matthew almost swore he heard his own sweat fall from his forehead and splatter on the ground. He glanced over at Krim, who was staring at his hand as if it had morphed into a heckhound and bit her. Ashley had turned around by now, but was still closer to the enemy than her apparent allies. There was a loud, hair-raising laugh from the other side of the clearing. The girl with the big eyes was doubled over, laughing so hard that it looked like her eyes might pop out of her skull and skip into the forest.

"What is _this? _A _rescue party_?" The laughter didn't cease even as she spoke, but she did straighten up. "What'dya say, Val? Do we want to keep them?"

Ashley and Krim visibly stiffened at the questions, but Matt kept a straight, calm face as he continued pointing the wand between the two of them. The so-called 'Val' grabbed Mary by one arm and hoisted her up before nodding to the laughing girl. She frowned, but jogged toward him. Matt glanced at Krim before quickly tapping the symbol on his wand with his thumb. Nothing happened. In fact, he stood there tapping the symbol for several long seconds before he made an angry sound and threw the stick at the jogging girl.

There was a startled yell, followed by a hiss, and then a very, very bright light.

Ashley turned away from the light, reaching out in front of her as she squeezed her eyes shut. Matt held his arm up to shield his eyes from the blinding light, and Krim hit one knee as she held her hands up. Wind accompanied the light and it swirled around them angrily, threatening to knock Ash off her feet. There was another loud, shrill laugh and another burst of light. This time, though, the light was green and flew like a bolt of electricity.

Once squeezed shut, Ash's eyes flew open as the green orb hit her square in the back, knocking the breath out of her and sending her to her knees. Krim yelled something that drown out in the sound of the howling wind as she scrambled forward to help the other female. Then, suddenly, the light and wind stopped as if they had never started. The sky above them went from a black void to a normal, baby blue color.

"What did she use?" Matt asked hurriedly, kneeling down beside the two as he looked at Krim.

"I don't know. It was green; she must have been a Life."

"Life's don't kidnap people. This is all wrong. The guy was an Ice; that was a stun that he used."

"What do we do?" Krim asked, covering her mouth as the back of Ash's shirt started to stain red. "I can't—I don't—I'm not—" She stuttered, too panic ridden to string together a complete thought. Ashley grumbled, something inaudible and low. Matthew reached forward carefully and rolled her sideways so that she wasn't face down in the dirt.

"1…1098 P-Primrose Lane…"

"What? Primrose? Is she a doctor?" Krim looking incredibly confused.

"Street address," Matthew stated quickly, sliding one arm under Ash's head and the other under her knees before he nodded to where they entered. "We need to get her to a hospital."

"N-no." Ashley shook her head, coughing as she spoke. Whatever had been cast on her was almost poison-like in the way that she was being drained of energy. "My mom's a n… nurse."

"Is it far?" Krim questioned, walking quickly beside Matt as he carried the other girl.

"No," Ash whispered, eyes fluttering shut as she relaxed slightly against his chest. Matt didn't seem to really notice; he was too busy calculating how they were going to get her home when he had no idea where 'home' was. How was he even going to explain that? They'd probably think he shot her or something. Maybe they'd believe them if they said they were friends from school; surely she went to high school.

"Alright, we're going to get you home."

* * *

Matt wasn't sure how exactly they found her house. Maybe it was a lucky guess or fate playing nice. Whatever the reason, the two jogged up the driveway and past the willow tree. He was out of breath and looked like he'd ran through the rain, but thankfully he had the endurance to manage it. Krim was panting and the bottom layer of her hair was an even deeper color of scarlet, but she paid it no mind as she knocked on the large door as loudly and hastily as possible.

Ash had stopped responding just after seeing her home, as if she finally allowed herself to completely relax and sleep. Naturally, this heightened the two's worry and made them even more panicked. Luckily, Matt dealt with stress much better than Krim, who was biting her nails and shaking slightly. Matt readjusted her in his arms, hoping someone would open the door; he wasn't sure that he could make into town with her if no one was home.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of creaking wood and a welcoming, gentle voice. "Hel-" The woman barely managed to get the first syllable of the greeting out of her mouth before she caught sight of her daughter. She jerked the door open the rest of the way and ushered them inside the kitchen. Inside were two other males, one much older than the other. Matt glanced around rather frantically for Krim, who was practically hiding behind him as he walked farther into the kitchen.

"Put her on the table and tell me what happened." The woman, who Matt presumed was the girl's mother, ordered as she grabbed the corner of the tablecloth and pulled everything off the table. The dead silent room was filled with the sound of dished clattering the floor. The older man had dropped the drink he was holding, and pulled his daughter from Matt's arms before lying her down on the table and mumbling frantically to his wife.

"Talk." Kymma ordered in annoyance as she pressed her fingers to Ashley's neck, counting under her breath as she watched the clock on the stove. Matt opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't get any words to come out. Nolan was checking Ash's arms, as if he might find cuts or something.

"She said for you to _talk_." Nolan hissed, shooting Matt a glare.

Suddenly, he found his voice again. "She got hit by a spell. On her back. It's a really long story and—you're wizards." He interrupted himself as he realized the two were surrounded by soft, glowing light that all Earthbound wizards had. Nolan's hands froze.

"Is that what this is about?" He hissed, turning toward Matt with an expression not short of rage. "I left for a _reason_. My daughter shouldn't be caught up in any of Wizard City's affairs."

"Nolan, they probably don't know anything about that. They're scared; calm down. She's fine." Nolan tore his eyes off the two long enough to nod to his wife.

"How bad is it?"

"I've seen you with worse." Nolan's expression darkened, but he said nothing.

Kymma continued, as she finished wrapping the bandage around Ash's middle. "She needs some sleep. The bleeding's stopped. She'll be fine." Matt and Krim relaxed slightly, though Krim made no move to stop hiding behind her shorter friend. "You two have some explaining to do."

"Yes, like who you even are and what you were doing around my daughter."

* * *

***casual hinting to the soul stealer scene with Kymma and Nolan* I'm hoping that chapter was okay. I've never changed characters like that in a story, and I thought it'd be easier to keep up with who's who if I wrote this in third person instead of first like BPD. Hopefully that's okay!~**


	4. The Dark is Dangerous

**Sand in an Hourglass  
**Chapter 3  
_The Dark is Dangerous  
_

* * *

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."

_-Eleanor Roosevelt_

* * *

Krim assumed that the hard, unforgiving wood of the dining room chairs would be more comfortable if she actually felt welcomed in the home. Instead, she felt like she was being interrogated by some authorities back at Ravenwood. She imagined that her hands wouldn't feel any heavier if they were shackled to the arms of the chair. She also thought that the wood grain pattern of the dining table would be imprinted in her vision if she stared down at it any longer.

"What are your names?"

The question, which came from the brunette sitting across from her, seemed simple enough to answer. The button she had pulled off her sleeve was urging her to speak, to say something to make them think she was just a normal girl from Wizard City. Except, a name couldn't tell them much aside from what she was called by the people who addressed her. It wouldn't tell them her outlook on life, her fear of the dark, or even what kind of dipping sauce she enjoyed.

"I think you ought to tell us who you are first." Matt's tone was challenging, as if he didn't realize that these were two grown adults with the power to, well, visit his parents. Nolan turned a shade of red, but his wife simply nodded.

"That's fair. Stranger danger, right?" She smiled, "I'm Kymma. This," she motioned to her husband, "is Nolan. You're turn."

"Matthew Ashthorn," Matt kept his eyes level with theirs, though that meant he had to angle his chin up and sit up a bit straighter than he preferred. Krim glanced over at him, fingers tightening and then loosening on the button in her grasp. He was too busy keeping eye contact to notice. Krim turned back to face the two parents, plus the girl's younger brother who was leaned against the kitchen counter behind them, and was shocked to see how pale they'd gone since she looked away. The mother looked as if she might faint or scream and the father looked somewhat scared and annoyed. Then again, Krim realized he'd looked annoyed since they arrived. She wondered if he always looked annoyed.

"Ashthorn?" Kymma echoed, glancing over at Nolan, who rolled his eyes.

"Great, I thought I was done dealing with Malorn's shit." Nolan sighed in annoyance, tapping his finger against the wood of the table. He narrowed his eyes. "Lemme guess, you're his kid."

"_Grand_kid. I'm not that old." Matt looked offended, but Nolan didn't seem to care. Instead, his face had bunched up in confusion, his brows knitted together as if someone had told him his best friend had died.

"Right, time's different." Kymma whispered, glancing over at her husband. "I forget."

"He… Is he dead?" Nolan lowered his head so that he was no longer looking directly at the two. Krim readjusted in her seat and picked at her fingernails. She wasn't a fan of awkwardness, and this was practically dripping with the emotion.

"He died about a year ago." Matt was also staring at his lap, as if he couldn't make eye contact with either of the parents. Krim debated on patting his shoulder or doing something to show him some support, but the way he had crossed his arms showed that he probably didn't want anyone to even look at him. Instead, she simply muttered a low apology for the loss.

Kymma's mouth opened and closed several times before she shook her head and patted her husband's head. "I think we should let them stay. Malorn would have done that for the kids if they needed somewhere."

"Hey, we're not charity cases." Matt interjected, picking his head up once more. Krim glared at him to shut up; she'd take staying at a quiet house over a dirty, loud motel any day, and since they couldn't convert large amounts of their gold into money without attracting unwanted attention, that was usually what they were stuck with.

"No, I wouldn't think so," Kymma smiled, "but with everything that's going on, I think you'd be safer here."

"We're both trained. We know how to fight." Matt held his chin up higher, but Krim shook her head softly. All the training in the world wouldn't make her want to surround herself in darkness, and that was what Necromancers did. They lived in the night, fought hand in hand with it, and threw it at their enemies. She couldn't handle sitting in a dark room for more than an hour without going completely insane, not even that long if she was alone. She'd done everything she could to stay out of the dark.

"Magic isn't very useful here," Nolan had picked his head up. "We moved here because the magical energies were too low to really do anything with. If Morganthe ever got ou—"

"Morganthe?" It was Matt's turn to furrow his eyebrows in confusion. "My grandfather used to talk about that fight. You know he helped catch her? It was the last time a portal between Wizard City and Earth opened for about a _hundred_ years! He made history on that one."

"I read about that." Krim piped up, looking up from her fingernails as she spoke. Her periwinkle eyes sparkled with curiosity. "That statue in the Commons had something to do with it. I didn't pay attention to its meaning, though."

"Yeah," the two seemed to forget they had an audience as they continued talking, "that's the girl that closed the portal. She got all the credit for the defeat, but I think it should have been split up."

"There's another one, too." Krim turned to look at them, smiling as she did so. "It's a huge love story thing. I always found it interesting. It's similar to the Romeo and Juliet story they have on Earth, but without the stupid suicides and stuff."

"Interesting," Kymma propped her chin up on her hand, smiling subtly. Nolan wore a full smirk on his face as he leaned back in his chair. "What were they're names?"

"Um," Krim furrowed her red eyebrows together and looked at Matt. "Do you remember?"

"Kim and something? Norman?"

"Kymma and…" Krim's eyes went wide and her jaw nearly dropped. Kymma glanced over at Nolan before she elbowed him in the side in an attempt to wipe the smug look of his face. "No _way!_"

"_Yes _way." Nolan continued to smirk, but it was much less smug now, probably due to the dull ache in his side from the elbow he'd just received. He stood up slowly, pushing his chair backward, "you two can stay as long as you like, but don't eat all our food. Teacher salary doesn't really cut it."

"You spend all your money on books. _I _pay for the food." Kymma rolled her eyes.

Nolan grinned, "Well, if the heat ever goes out then we'll burn the books and call it even."

Krim smiled. She might get used to being around people like this. The house was almost as warm as they were; she always had a good sense about people. They didn't seem bad, maybe she could relax here.

* * *

The darkness in the spare bedroom had nothing nice to offer her. It bathed the walls in shadows—shadows that she was supposed to control, to bend, to force them to do her bidding—and twisted the furniture into vicious animals. Here she was, squished against the wall that the bed was angled against and nearly hiding behind her knees as she frantically glanced back and forth. Krim was alone, in the darkness of an unfamiliar home with strangers on the other side of both walls.

_Necromancer_. She thought bitterly. She wasn't much of one; in fact, she doubted that she was ever meant to be one. She longed for the heat of a flame, to be able to summon that flicker of orange and red with just a flick of her wrist, yet nature stated that she would be a Necromancer. She was to be a master of the shadows that ailed her so, yet they only floated and twisted out of her mind's reach as they laughed at her failure. Matthew didn't seem to have any problems, from what she'd seen, so she couldn't excuse it as a normal happenstance of the school. Yet, she'd tell herself that anyway.

Krim's house was never this dark, but, then again it wasn't really her house. In fact, it wasn't in one place. Depending on the day, she moved between the schools in Ravenwood, though the Fire school had always been her favorite. It was warm, and peaceful, and _bright_. No matter how hard she looked, she'd never find a wicked shadow hiding in the corner and mocking her with its scary faces. That felt like home, and, well, this didn't.

"Krim?" The knock on the door nearly sent her sprawling through the wall behind her, and she calmed down much faster than her heart rate did. It sounded like Matt's voice, or at least it didn't sound dead. "Are you awake? I need to talk to you."

"Yeah, you can come in." She sat up quickly, trying not to look like she was half scared out of her mind. The redhead quickly slapped a smile on her face. "I couldn't sleep anyway."

"Neither could I. This house is too hot."

"I think it feels comfortable." Krim crossed her legs and cocked her head at him, sending her disarrayed hair to the side. He took a seat in the chair beside the wall adjacent to her.

"You're not really the typical Necromancer, you know?" He furrowed his eyebrows together, trying to piece together exactly what her deal was.

"That depends on how you look at it. Maybe I'm completely normal and everyone else isn't." She grinned slightly.

He shrugged. "I think we need to leave. Take her with us."

"What if she doesn't want to go?"

"I have a feeling she won't be able to stay once she realizes she's been lied to her whole life."

"I'm sure they had a good reason for it." Krim crossed her arms.

"Sure, but do you think she's going to think about it like that?" Matt shifted in his seat; he looked uncomfortable asking for her opinion. She nearly laughed, but smiled instead.

"I hope that she will. There's no need in fighting. They were probably trying to protect her. Wizard City is dangerous."

"I know. I don't think she'll care, though. She's pretty headstrong."

"You've only talked to her for maybe half an hour, how do you know that?"

"She hit me with her telescope thing and then acted like it was my fault." Matt sighed dramatically and pulled his wand out of his pocket. He still hadn't figured out why the charm hadn't taken effect. "You remember how they said this place doesn't have good magical energies?"

"Yeah," she turned her head to the side, inspecting the wand from the several feet away from him that she sat. "What about them?"

"Well, you can't come to Earth until you've had the training to harness it, but they left before that training was invented, right?"

"I guess? I mean, I think so?"

"So, how would they know what the magic levels are here?" He looked up from the wand, eyes slightly dark. "I don't trust them. I never really heard anything about them from my grandfather, and I'm not sure they're really who they say they are."

"They seemed okay to me." Krim sat up a little straighter though, dropping her voice to a whisper as she glanced towards the open door. He followed her gaze and leaned closer.

"How would she know how to fix Ashley's wound if she's just a nurse that hasn't had contact with Wizard City for a hundred years? How would he know anything about measuring magic? That idea was invented until the spiral door was unlocked to the public." Matt's voice came out as a hiss as he spoke through his teeth. Krim shrugged in confusion and buried her face in her hands.

"What reason would they have for lying? We're not important."

"Maybe they were banished? I don't know. I just know that things are not adding up and everyone could be in danger. If they're bad, then they'll expect Ashley to be bad."

"Well, she seemed fine to me, but so did the parents. Maybe you're just tired." Krim shook her head gently, and caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She jumped whirling her head around to face the shadow, before she realized it was a person moving past the door. She glanced over at Matt quickly.

It was annoying how smoothly he moved. She'd never really achieved that grace in her studies. He was silent, just as a Necromancer should be, as he made his way to the door and peered out of it. He let out a small breath and shut it, shaking his head. "Just that kid that was in the kitchen. I don't think he was listening. He looked half asleep."

"Probably going to the restroom. I've only seen one in the whole house."

"Yeah, probably," he walked back to chair and sighed. "Think we should leave?"

The idea of walking headlong into the dark, cold outside wasn't exactly appealing to Krim, but neither was sitting in a home where she might get assaulted or kidnapped at any moment. How was she supposed to choose? Instead, Krim simply shrugged, which was a choice on its own. She chose to accept whatever decision he made. He continued talking, planning, while she busied herself with picking the little balls of fuzz off her blanket. It was such a quaint little place; it was homey and comfortable.

There was a small sound at the door, almost a little whine or yawn. Krim glanced up, less startled than the previous two times, but pulled her knees closer to herself. Matt looked up, only half confused before his eyes fell on the silhouette in front of the door that was backlit by a small light down the hallway—perhaps a bedroom light.

"Do y'all know where Aedan went?" Ashley's sentence paused in the middle as she yawned. Matt stood up quickly, crossing his arms out of habit, and nodded down the hall to Ash's right. Krim readjusted on the bed, glancing slightly over to Ashley before returning her gaze to her fingers and started picking at her fingernails again. Ashley glanced between the two before her eyes widened slightly. "—Oh, sorry, I just… Aedan sneaks out a lot and that's so dangerous and I just… Sorry."

"—_Woah,_" Matt shook his head quickly, raising his hands as he glanced between the two girls. "It's not like that. I mean, Krim's my friend, we're not—"

Krim blinked up at him. Her fingers paused in mid pick at a fingernail and then continued pulling at the hangnail as she looked away from him. "Matt's too short for me."

Ashley glanced sideways at the red head, but nodded in understanding. Matt looked slightly redder as he shot a glare in her direction. "I'm not _short_."

"You're too vertically-challenged for me, then." She teased, sending him an overly sweet smile as she did so. Ash bit her bottom lip and glanced at the ground in an attempt to keep from laughing.

"Well, you're too…" Matthew paused, trying to figure out what to call her on, "_red_!"

"Red?" Ashley asked incredulously as she looked back up from the floor, giggling slightly. Krim grinned teasingly at the black haired boy.

"What are you laughing at? _You're shorter than me_!" Matt looked as if he might pull his own hair out, so instead he flopped back down in his chair and crossed his arms.

"Yeah," Ashley looked away with a shrug, "but I've made peace with my shortness. What's the big deal with it anyway?"

"I don't _like _being…" Matt froze, glaring at her through narrowed eyes. "I mean, I'm not horribly… horribly…" He wasn't really going to admit to it was he? That would make all of his arguments invalid. "I'd like to be taller."

"It's just DNA, though." Ash cocked her head at him. "I'm short because my mom was short. Red hair's a mutation," she nodded to Krim. "We're not really all that special once you get down to it. You're short. Big deal."

"You're pretty cynical," Matt raised an eyebrow. Ashley stopped in her tracks between walking to sit on the edge of the bed. She turned her head slightly to look at him, leaned against the back of the chair and watching her rather intently, as if she was some kind of puzzling… puzzle.

"I'm a realist." She continued walking to the bed as she shook herself out of her shock at being called out. No one ever really questioned her methods and outlook on life, but pretty much everyone knew why she was the way she was. Krim looked over at her through her side swept bangs and shook her head slowly.

"That's so depressing though." Krim propped her head up on her hands, which rested on her knees. "I think everyone's special."

"If everyone's special then special is normal and then, by definition, no one is really special, are they?" Ashley responded without looking at either of them. Krim opened her mouth, but then shut it as she tried to wrap her mind around that statement. The redhead glanced at Matt, who was still watching her curiously. Ash continued, "There might be people who are special, but then again a ninja might jump through that window in a few minutes and stab us all. I doubt either of those is true."

"How do you explain magic, then?" Matt challenged, holding his chin up a bit higher. Ashley looked up through the strands of hair that had fallen in her face, eyes narrowed.

"There's no such thing as magic."

"Then what was that in the forest?"

"That was a natural phenomenon caused by the rift. The molecules in the air were distressed."

"Molecules in the air were distressed?" Matt laughed; a deep, sincere laugh that made Ashley grimace and look away. She hated people laughing at her, that much was obvious. Krim looked between them before she sat up and uncrossed her legs. Matt's laughter finally died down, and he continued, "You really think that you can explain magic away like that? What about your back? Is that from distressed air molecules, because I might not really know what those are, but I'm pretty sure they won't do _that_."

"So, are you going to tell me that the rift is from _magic _too?" Ashley snorted, waving her hand is dismissal of the idea. Krim glanced over at Matt with a nod that was accompanied by a small shoulder shrug.

Matt shrugged. "Yeah, actually, it is. It's called a portal, though, not a rift."

"A portal? Like to another dimension?" Ash crossed her arms. "That's ridiculous. Other dimensions are possible, but that's explained in String Theory; that's not magic."

"Yes, but it _is _magic." Matt argued. "It's old magic. I'm not sure how you could cast it without tons of training, but obviously it's possible or that one in the forest wouldn't have opened."

Ash stood as he spoke, and started walking to the window. Krim wondered momentarily if she was waiting for that ninja to jump out, but instead she pulled the string attached to the blinds and watched as they raised. She stood there for a few moments before her arm flew up and her finger pressed against the glass. "There. Do you see the discoloration?"

Matt stood, followed closely by Krim, and walked to the window. "Yeah, so?"

"That's the same thing that happened last week in the same area as the other one. It's been happening all over the country, but no one's sure why. That," she pointed to the building underneath it, "is the only bar in the entire town. It's not exactly somewhere you want to hang out, either."

"Well let's go check it out." Krim nudged Matt, though she was hoping they wouldn't have to go _in _that place. She'd be happier to stay outside.

"You can't get in. You have to be over twenty-one, which I'm pretty sure no one here is." Ash folded her arms.

"No said we were going in the _front _entrance." Matt grinned slightly, turning toward the door. "If you're coming with us, you should get dressed."

Ashley blinked back and forth between Krim and Matt. Krim had started pulling her belt and jacket back on as Matt walked out of the room. Ash didn't know what she was supposed to wear; she had no idea what was even considered appropriate to wear to a bar. Not that bars were normally an appropriate atmosphere.

Krim glanced back at her, pushing her hair over her shoulder as she did. "Matt's dramatic sometimes," she laughed quietly. Ashley snorted in agreement, turning to look back out the window.

"I missed Aedan. He's going to get himself into trouble. Or worse."

"Or maybe he'll be perfectly fine. Teenagers sneak out all the time."

"People die all the time, too." Ash glanced over at the red head. "Look, I get that you're an optimist, but I'm not. I don't see the best in people."

"Why?"

"People aren't always good."

"Yeah," Krim nodded, "but they aren't always bad, either."

"I'd rather be wrong about them being bad than wrong about them being good."

* * *

**Alright! So, we're finally getting to learn some stuff about our three little heroes. There'll probably be more about their pasts in the next few chapters, plus I feel some shipping coming on. For the questions about smut, I've never been able to write it very well. That's probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to write, and I don't think I'm up for the challenge again, yet. Maybe at some point (It'd be a different entry, though, I don't like changing ratings for one chapter.)**

**Also, I apologize for taking weeks to write this. This week is my finals week, so I've been really busy with finishing up assignments this month. Hopefully after this week I'll have more time than I know what to do with! I started a website for this series, too (because I totally don't have enough on my plate) though I don't know what I'm going to use it for lol **

**Actually, I have a serious question for you guys! I've been asked by four or five different people to write specific things that I didn't with Kymma and Nolan (i.e. their wedding, different scenes from Nolan's POV, etc) so do you think I should start a new entry that's specifically so people can send me prompts with those two?**


	5. Shades of Gray

**Sand in an Hourglass  
**Chapter 4  
_Shades of Gray  
_

* * *

"One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word."

_-Robert A. Heinlein_

* * *

This part of town wasn't quite in the slightest, even at eleven o'clock at night. Sirens blared in the distance as an ambulance raced against time down the highway, sending red and blue hues down the tiny alley that the three were walking through. The ground was blanketed in a thin sheet of water that had collected from the downpour that started once they stepped out of the home. Ash's combat-style boots sent water scattering sideways with every step; the sound of splashing water became the most prominent sound in the alley. There was a distinct sound from the building to their left; the loud, crashing echo of the bass being cranked up too loud inside the bar. Ash shuttered for the fate of her eardrums and glanced sideways at the two.

It annoyed her how they could walk so silently, gracefully and how they made it look so effortless. Matt was like a shadow; his footsteps were soundless, he seemed to practically float down the alley, and he hadn't spoken since he left Krim's bedroom. Krim wasn't as silent and focused as he was, she seemed to be more worried about how dark and dank everything was on this side of town. Ash wasn't too fond of it, either; in fact, she'd made mental note to never, ever step foot around this bar again.

It was obvious that the building was decaying. The mortar between the bricks was cracked and missing in some places. Some newer looking cement had been pushed into the cracks to form a sort of a patch, though it had spilled down the sides of the red bricks and left it looking dingy. There weren't any visible windows, but there was a back door. Now, she wasn't one to state the obvious, but it seemed like there would be people guarding the exit to the only bar in town.

"We're still going to run into people." Ashley hissed at her companions, stopping before she quite reached the door. Krim blinked in confusion, but Matt shrugged.

"Yeah, we'll deal with it." Matt continued to the door, looking it up and down before he put his hand on the handle. Krim followed close behind him, just as she always did when she was uncomfortable. Ash rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, giving the two and the door a wide berth as she leaned against the opposite building's exterior wall. Matt slowly pulled the door open, peaking inside before he finally opened it the rest of the way and slipped inside. Krim followed, pulling at the bottom of her shirt in anxiety.

Once Ashley pushed herself off the wall, she started toward the door, though her hand lingered on the side of it. If she did this, it _would _be illegal. Criminal records followed you throughout life and she might have problems with scholarships if she went on with it. She wasn't _scared_, just cautious. Her hesitation almost gave way to leaving, but a squeak made her lean inside enough to see. She had to squint against the light, but she could make out Krim and Matt's backs and the burry faces of two men.

She opened her mouth to scream, but what good would that do? Alert the authorities? They were the ones breaking the law here. There was a moment of silence between the two parties, until one of the men spoke.

"What're ya doin'?" His voice was gravelly, like he'd spent the majority of his life smoking.

"We're… um… looking for the bathroom?" Krim asked with a small hint of hope. Ash could hear the fake smile in her voice, and she tried to quietly shut the door in defense of the statement. Neither of the men looked up at the younger girl, and she slowly took a few steps away from the large, metal door. Matt's fingers fiddled with something attached to his belt, though she couldn't be entirely sure what that something was. It resembled the stick-like object he had back in the forest.

"Nice try, kiddo." The other man, who looked younger than the first, scratched his chin. "What'dya think, Rog? Call the police? I bet they're snoopin'."

"On what? This is just a bar, isn't it?" Ash spoke up, catching "Rog"'s attention.

"Yer one of them Gates, ain't ya? They ain't gonna be happy with you."

"Hmm, well," Ashley stood up a bit straighter and crossed her arms, joining the other two in front of the men. "Won't they don't know won't hurt them, right?"

"You think we won't tell your folks what you've been up to?" The younger man gave her a quizzical look. She shrugged.

"You won't if you don't want me to the police about _that _when they show up." She pointed to a box sitting in the corner of the room. They followed her finger to the box, the younger man swallowed and shot a look at Rog. Rog simply laughed.

"G'head. Ya don't even know what's in it, kid." Ash's confidence faltered slightly as he pointed out the obvious. She _didn't _know what was in it. She had absolutely no idea what was in it. It could have been a stray cat or a collection of human heads for all she knew, but she couldn't be sure that it wasn't just extra bottles of whiskey. Ashley couldn't really be sure of anything. She did, though, catch the nervous look the younger man shot at Rog, and that was enough to make her continue.

"It's illegal, isn't it? I bet it's drugs." Ashley put one hand on her hip, holding her chin up to meet the taller Rog's gaze. If there was any doubt that she was her father's daughter, this would have easily cleared it up. "In fact, maybe we should go ahead and call that little tip in."

Rog's grin slowly slid off his face as she spoke, and the younger man glanced frantically from Ashley to his friend. Krim scooted closer to Ashley until she was almost standing behind her, much like how she had been back in the forest. The younger man suddenly went completely still; his eyes widened as Ashley pulled the small, compact phone from her front right pants pocket and started to unlock it. She didn't catch what happened next; it went by in a flash of color and sudden sounds.

She barely managed to pick her head up by the time she realized the younger man had raised his hand to strike. Her aquamarine eyes widened as realization sunk in, and she raised her hand to block him out of instinct. She squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for the impact, but instead all she felt was something push against her shoulder roughly and force her to stumble to the side. Ash slowly lowered her hand to see the man bent over, hand pressed against his nose and a low, almost growl sound came out from his throat.

Matt was standing where she had been, though he didn't really look like he'd been hit. Instead, he was shaking his hand out and glaring at Rog, who closed his currently agape mouth. Ash let her hand fall back to her side in a brief moment of shock, before she rubbed her injured shoulder and shot the black-haired boy a glare. Matt didn't seem to notice, and instead glanced backwards at Krim and nodded. She sighed, pulling out her wand before she started toward Rog.

"I had that handled," Ash hissed quietly, leaning closer to him so that she was certain that he heard. Matt snorted.

"Yeah, it really looked like you had it under control."

"I don't need your help."

"Well, you're getting it anyway. You might as well appreciate it." Matt moved away after he finished speaking. Ash frowned, though she wasn't sure if it was from him walking away or because she actually did need his help and he knew it. The injured man glanced at Matt as he approached him, before he stood up straight and swung a bloody hand at him. Matt sighed, as if he thought restraining him would be easier than it was turning out to be. He waited until he swung again, and then caught him by the wrist in an attempt to avoid his blood. The man's eyes widened, but he swung the other hand, which Matt caught in the same fashion and pressed the man's arms together tightly. "How's it going, Krim?"

"I…" The redhead was still standing in front of Rog, wand raised to his eye level. Her hands were shaking at her sides, and her free hand clasped and unclasped the edge of her shirt. "I'm not sure I can."

"What do you mean? I thought you said you were 'magic'." Ash shorted, throwing her hands in the air.

"I can't always… Sometimes I mess up, and then things… things don't go right." She was still shaking, and Rog backed away slowly. Ash leaned down, picking up one of the floor boards whose nails had come loose enough to easily let go. The board was probably two feet long, but it felt like it weighted nothing in her hands. She was _angry_. Angry enough that the corners of her vision were stained with red and the blood roared in her ears. She didn't know if her anger was from having a man almost slap her, from random guy's fighting her battles for her and treating her like a damsel in distress, or the fact that her best friend had died from being hit by a drunk driver on the road just outside this building.

Rog's eyes grew wide as she walked up to him; board raised, and started to bring it down on his head. He might have been the lowlife that killed Valarie, her best friend, or maybe he had been the one that sold the guy responsible enough drinks to kill a horse before letting him leave with his keys. Hitting him wouldn't kill him; it took more than that to break the skull, but it would knock him out if she hit him hard enough. That would give them enough time to see what they needed to see and then get out.

She froze in mid-swing. At this point, Ashley wasn't sure if she was one of the good guys or one of the bad guys. The bad guys broke into places, the bad guys started fights, and the bad guys beat people with boards. Was this what it felt like to have one's morals compromised? Was this even justified in any way? She'd always liked science because it was all gray; you couldn't _prove _science, but you could test it until the probability of a theory was nearly unquestionable. You could toss a ball up in the air two million times and have it hit the ground each time, but the next time you toss it up it might get caught in some perfect alignment of gravity and space and it might stay there forever.

Ash's life was beginning to get grayer than her science world.

Her family had lied to her, over and over and over again; everyday she woke up they had lied to her, and her existence was a lie in itself. She'd had her reason for living turned on its head and spun like a globe; magic was real, no matter how many times she argued that it wasn't. Magic and science could not coexist, and science cannot be proven. Ash's life had been black and white until about five years ago, but now her life was complete covered in shades of gray. Slate gray, charcoal gray, light gray, ash gray, taupe gray, silver; it was _all _gray.

"Ashley," Matt's voice was cool, collected. He didn't sound like he was watching someone about to hit another over the head with a board, but that was in fact what he was doing. "You need to put that down."

"_You _need to leave me alone. You don't know _anything_ about me."

"Ash?" Krim's voice wasn't nearly as steady as Matt's, in fact, she sounded terrified. That had more impact on the dark-haired girl than anything. "You remember how you said that you didn't want to be wrong about people being good?"

"No one's good. A human's natural state is animalistic; it's bad. Unlawful. Unruly. Good is only a perception."

"No," Krim shook her head, having finally murmured the incantation necessary to wipe the memory of the injured man in Matt's grip, "good is a state of being. Bad is, too. It's the consequences of your actions, and that one is not a good one."

"Law only exists where we allow it to. Did you know that?"

"I can wipe his memory." Krim ignored her off-subject question and walked closer to the two. "But, you'll have to move."

"I…" The dark-haired girl nodded slowly, letting the board fall to the floor. Matt, having sat the injured man against a wall, walked forward to grab Ash by the wrist.

"What's going on with you?" His brown eyes searched her face in bewilderment, confusion written across his features.

"Maybe I'm like this all the time." Ash wrenched her hand free from his grip and placed her hand on her hip. "It's not like you'd know; you've known me for, what, a day? Don't start preaching at me."

"I'm not. You're just… You're very confusing."

"Stop trying to understand everything, then." Ashley readjusted her shirt and set her shoulders, mentally shaking away the memories of Valerie that had resurfaced. "We need to get this done. I want to go get some sleep."

Krim stuffed her wand back into the band of her pants and sighed in relief. Those spells had actually _worked_. She glanced over at the two, furrowing her red eyebrows and pursing her lips as she watched them argue quietly. It was funny how they'd known each other for less than twenty-four hours and were already fighting like a married couple. Krim felt a slight pang of jealousy, but shrugged it off and walked between the two. "She's right, we should get this done."

Matt shrugged, rubbing his hand where it was sore from having hit the younger guy, and started down the small hallway. The hall was small, only four or five feet in width and constructed from the same brick as the exterior. Ashley wondered if kicking it would reduce it to rubble, but she wasn't in a hurry to find out, either. It felt as though they walked down the hallway for hours, though they'd probably only walked a few seconds before they reached the next doorway. There were hinges on the doorframe, but the door itself looked as if someone had ripped it off and thrown it away. Matt leaned forward a little to check for any guards, but instead was met with an empty, dark room.

Ash wrinkled her nose. The room smelled like frogs they'd dissected in her Biology class last year and copper. Krim, too, caught the smell and turned her head to cough and cover her mouth. Matt glanced backward at them and shook his head. "This isn't just a bar."

"You mean alcohol doesn't smell this bad?" Ash choked on her words and pinched her nose.

"Depends on the alcohol, I guess. Grizzleheim's doesn't."

"_Ugh_, that is disgusting." Ash shuttered as they walked further into the room. She pulled her phone out of her pocket once more and turned the flash on for a makeshift flashlight. The room was barren. The carpet had been stripped away and left concrete foundation in its vacancy. The walls were made of paneling, but the bottom half had been broken off in jagged pieces that made the walls look like bad abstract paintings. There was a hole in the center of the ceiling where a light fixture had once been installed, but was now missing completely. "This looks like a murder scene."

"I don't see any blood. Maybe they're redecorating." Krim offered hopefully.

"A smart person would clean the blood," Ash rolled her eyes, "and redecorating doesn't require ripping half the wall down."

"Maybe you should go back home." Matt turned to look at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

Ashley scoffed. "You think I'm walking home alone in the dark? You're crazy."

"This might get dangerous."

"Yeah, well, I'm dangerous." Ashley shrugged, turning to get a three-sixty look of the room.

Matt shook his head. "Stupidity and danger are different, you know." Ash ignored his comment and continued looking around the room. Her attention was caught by the wall, and she squinted. She hadn't noticed the asymmetry of the panels at first, but this time it was glaringly obvious. There was a door shape just to their left, and a small key hole at about waist height.

Ash grinned. _Bingo_. "Hey," she lowered her voice to a whisper, nudging Matt in the side with her elbow, "see that?"

"What?"

She started toward the door, kneeling so that she was on eyelevel with the key hole. It was an old lock, one that she'd seen people look through on TV, and somehow she could make out bits and pieces of what lied in wait behind the door. There was darkness, and a glow of orange from the right that flickered and waved. There was also a small table, that much she could see, with something sitting in the middle that looked like a large book. Ash blinked in confusion, and turned to look at Matt, who had his ear pressed against the paneling.

Matt heard various scuffing sounds, like someone dragging their feet across pavement. That did not bother him as much as the words he heard: "_Ne mentiri me sed animo secreta euoluere_." His Latin was horrible; the class hadn't been required for travel to Earth, but had been highly recommended to him. The teacher himself seemed to barely understand the language, which wasn't surprising since he'd only had a year or so to learn it. He could pick a few words out, though: not, lie, unravel, and secrets. Latin was used as a magical language in some aspects, but it was mostly used as a way to calm the person having the spell or charm cast upon them. He'd only known those words because there was a certain set of them that belonged to the Shadow Magic. That happened to be one of them.

"There's magic going on behind there. Bad magic."

"You mean…?" Krim asked quietly, eyes wide with fear. Matt nodded solemnly. Ash ignored them, still caught up in her internal war between science and magic. There were worse things than Latin gibberish uttered behind secret doors, though Ashley couldn't really think of anything more exciting than that. She might have failed at catching the rift on tape, but she might could debunk this and earn herself some brownie points from the science community.

Matt pushed past her, ignoring the scoff that erupted from her throat as he did so. "Krim, you think we should bring them in? Shadow Magic's outlawed, I bet there's a reward." The red head in the center of the room bit her lip and rubbed her arm anxiously. The sounds from the room grew louder, accompanied by soft footsteps that trudged closer to the hidden door.

"Ay, I told ya t' hurry op." Ash's face screwed up as the voice erupted from the other side of the door. The accent was different; it sounded Irish or something similar to her, though the wood muffled it enough to make her unsure. Though, his accent was really her last concern as something seized the back of her shirt and hauled her back to the wall. A small gasp escaped her before a cold, shaking hand covered her mouth. Ash twisted her head around frantically, clawing at the hand before her head turned enough to see brown orbs of annoyance staring back at her.

Matt's back was crushed into the corner, half-way lying down and half-way sitting up. Ash pulled at his hand on her mouth as her eyes followed the length of his free, outstretched arm. Krim was huddled next to him, face buried into her hands. Blue eyes widened as a strange, tendril like smoke seemed to crawl out of Matt's outstretched palm. A scream erupted in Ashley's throat, though it was silenced by the hand that was still clamped over her mouth.

The smoke stretched out, like a curtain on an invisible rod, and connected to the walls and floor around them in the corner like a spider web. She noticed then that the smoke moved like water, it almost seemed to crash and fall like waves in the ocean. Ash was torn between scooting away from the mysterious smoke-liquid and closer to Matt, and scrambling away from Matt and closer to the smoke. The door burst open, bathing the area in cool, blue light.

"Don't get your panties in a wad, Leprechaun." A girl exited the room first, throwing an old, worn leather book over her shoulder as she did. "Ugh, this thing is heavy. You carry it."

"Ay!" The man, who was strikingly similar to the man Ash had seen in the park, ducked and reached up to catch the book. "I had t' fight a damn dragon t' get dat old ting."

"Yeah? Well, I had to walk five blocks _in the rain _in the middle of this God-forsaken little town just so you could read a few stupid words." The girl shuttered. "I hope it's not raining anymore."

"Ain't ya s'pposed t' be a diviner?"

"Yes, and that means I don't get rained on." She shuttered, walking out of the room and to the hallway that the three had entered through. "Unless I'm in this stupid town in the middle of _nowhere_ and _then _I get rained on."

Once the blond-haired man disappeared, Matt's hand dropped down to the floor and his other hand slipped away from Ash's mouth. The smoke seemed to ripple, then fell to the floor in dark gray drops. Ash gasped as his hand left her mouth, and she scrambled away from him, watching as the drops hit the floor and evaporated almost immediately. Krim looked up from her hands and quietly let out a dry, shaky laugh.

"I thought there wasn't good energy here?" The redhead pushed Matt's shoulder playfully, earning herself a small smile.

"There's not. That was probably the hardest spell I've ever cast." He sat up the rest of the way, rubbing his back as he whispered.

"Considering that you did that without a wand, I'm not surprised."

"Remember in Earth History how Earth wizards never used wands? I think that's why we couldn't cast anything." Matt glanced over to Ashley, who was sitting several feet away from them with her arms around her torso. Krim furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at the dark-headed girl, Matt sighed and stood. "I told you, didn't I?"

"That's completely impossible." Ash shook her head.

"I thought you people didn't believe in the impossible." Matt kneeled down beside her, frowning when she moved away from him. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Why should I believe that? Why should I believe anything? My entire universe is explained through theories and rules and you just took all of them and threw them out the window. Why… Why should I trust you?" Ashley ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to gather her thoughts. She'd ran away from home, broke into a bar, helped knock out some guards, and witnessed the unraveling of the entire science field. At best, she'd be grounded for life. At worst, well, she might get kicked off the planet. Gravity's obviously not very reliable anymore.

Matt sighed in what almost sounded like defeat, but that would be completely uncharacteristic of him. "I can't really give you any good reasons. Except," he cocked his head at her and raised an eyebrow, "I _did _just save your life. Plus, I kept that guy from hitting you. _And _I ran you all the way back to your house from the forest, which is a pretty good ways, so you could at least give me credit for that."

"Not to mention you broke my telescope, jeopardized my chances of getting a scholarship, ruined my criminal record, and made me run away from home."

"I didn't _make _you do anything."

"Maybe you used your witchy magic power things on me." Ash paused to look at him with a confused look as he smiled slightly. "I thought making yourself disappear wasn't in your 'set of skills'?"

"It's not. That was a diviner's spell. One of my friends taught it to me." Matt smiled, before a scream nearly made him jump straight up. The black-haired boy grabbed Ash by the arm, dragging her behind him as he motioned from Krim to follow him into the secret room. Ash whirled on him the moment his fingers released her forearm, finger raised and face red. He rolled his eyes at her and held his finger to his lips as he nodded at the door. Krim peered over Matt from where she was attempting to hide behind the shorter boy. Her anxiety was through the roof.

"_What _happened to our guards?"

"Looks like dey got t'eir arses kicked."

"By _who_?" The girl's voice was shrill, like a child's would be. Ash noticed the first time she saw her that she was neither the girl in the forest, nor was she as old as that girl. She was maybe fourteen at tops. Matt grabbed the doorknob and glanced over his shoulder at Krim, who was biting her fingernails.

"Little help here?" Matt pulled the door hard enough to strain the muscles in his arm—which surprised Ash slightly, he seemed pretty wimpy before—and shot Krim a look. The redhead groaned in frustration and pulled her wand out of her belt. Matt shook his head quickly, and Krim shoved the wand back in place and held a hand out.

"I don't know how to do this," she admitted gently, glancing better Ash and Matt. "I… I've only ever used a wand."

"Me too. You just have to feel the energy in the air and channel it."

"I…" Her voice trailed off as she shut her eyes, willing the static in the air into her hand. After a few seconds, Matt jabbed her in the side and hissed for her to hurry. Ashley blinked, stumbling backwards as a similar shadow-like substance started from her palm, but disintegrated with a loud sizzle. The redhead hung her head and buried her face in her hands. "I can't. I'm not… I'm not good at death magic."

"I suggest you hurry and think of something," Ashley whirled around, eyes narrowed as she spotted the individual on the opposite side of the room. It was male, slumped over in an old wooden chair with his hands and feet bound. His head was bowed, face covered by a mass of blond waves and slight curls close to his neck. His voice was thick and heavy, and it reminded Ashley of gravel and rocks. Ash glanced sideways at Matt, who looked more confused than she felt. She'd expected whoever was in the room to be dead or at least passed out. "I don't know how you got mixed up in this crowd, but you'd better be hurrying back to Ravenwood."

"What class are you in?" Matt's eyebrows were furrowed, like he was trying to read the boy, though he couldn't even see his face. Krim, on the other hand, was staring in silent amazement.

"Fire." The blond picked his head up slightly, dull blue eyes looking between the three of them. "Don't expect any help from me. I'm doing good to be talking. Luckily, torture isn't their strong point."

"We're getting out of here." Krim stated simply, observing him carefully as Matt pulled on the door and shot her another look. "You can come with us."

"Where? Back to Ravenwood? No, thanks, I've had my fill of that." He picked his head up more, but the movement sent a grimace across his face and he sighed. "I'd appreciate it if you could get these off." The male looked from Ashley to the ropes around his wrists. She looked over to Matt, as if asking for some silent permission or verification that the newcomer was safe to go around. Matt hesitated, but nodded slowly.

"We'll tell you about it on the way; right now I'm a bit busy." Matt held his hand out at the door, shooting another annoyed look at Krim before more shadows erupted from his palm. Ash looked away from it and busied herself with untying the messy rope knots. There was a loud sound from the other side of the door. It sounded similar to that of a woman who'd been told her husband was dead. The sound was followed by a small chuckle, and the fading of footsteps down the hall.

"Banshee?" Krim asked Matt quietly, leaning away from the door without thinking about it too much. Matt nodded, and slowly looked through the keyhole in the lock.

"Yeah, just one. I got it." He exited quickly, shutting the door behind him. Ash rocked on her heels as she finished untying the last rope around his wrists, and kneeled to start on the ones around his ankles. He muttered a quick 'thank you' and rubbed his face. Krim leaned against the wall behind the door, watching it as if it might come alive and bite her. Ash didn't notice the teenager pick his head up with some effort and lean against the back of the chair.

"I know that look." The boy's voice was still hard and gravely, but there was an inquisitive softness to it now. Ash shot him a questioning look, but he didn't notice it. Krim, however, jerked her head to the side to meet his steely gaze. She pushed her hair behind her ear and shrugged. The boy continued, "I've seen it a lot. What's your story?"

"I don't know what you mean." Krim straightened her posture; there was a sudden sharp, bittersweet tone to her voice. She crossed her arms across her chest and smiled at him. "There's not much to tell about me."

"Mhmm," the boy nodded, looking severely unimpressed—or perhaps that expression was post-effects of the magic used on him—as he closed his eyes. "Well, seems like you guys came along for some reason. Might as well learn your names, I doubt this is the last time I'll see you. I'm Alric."

"Ashley," Ash introduced herself lamely as she let the last rope drop to the floor, and she quickly stood. Blue eyes darted to the door as a small shriek came from the other side. What was she so worried about? He could take care of himself; the boy could shoot shadow-water out of his hands, for Christ's sake.

Krim pushed her hair back, hoping to block his gaze from the frightened expression on her face. She focused her attention of the small hole in the door and twisted the corner of her shirt around her index finger. "I'm Krim."

The door squeaked on its hinges as Matt reappeared, looking significantly more exhausted than before. "Let's go," he jerked his thumb toward the hallway and looked over to Alric. "You can come if you'd like. It'd be pretty cruel to leave you here."

Alric stood, though it was shaky and Ash thought momentarily that he might fall flat on his face. She was shocked to realize that he was significantly taller than Matt, probably six foot or so if she compared his height to her father's. Matt looked almost crestfallen, but covered it up quickly. "We need to go. No—"

There was a sudden, shrill beeping from Ash's pocket. She nearly jumped out of her skin before she managed to fish the cell phone out, but her face went completely white when she read the name of the caller. '_Mom_'. She 'shh'ed the others quickly before tapping the answer button and holding her phone up to her ear as she put on her best tired voice.

"H.. Hello?"

"_Ashley_ _Anna Gates!" _Ash held the phone away quickly as she winced at the shrill sound of her mother's voice. "Do you have _any _idea how worried I was about you? I've been trying to get in touch with you for almost an hour! Where are you at?"

"Uh…"

"It doesn't matter, we'll discuss this later. Just get to the hospital. Something happened to your brother."

Ash nearly dropped her phone. She'd let Aedan go out and now something horrible had happened. Was he dead? Shot? Stabbed? "W-what happened?"

"They don't know. Just hurry up. Be careful." The line went dead, and Ashley pocked her phone with all the grace of a robot. Matt blinked at her with more gentleness than she'd ever seen on his face, but she simply turned and started out the door. How could they not know what was wrong? They were doctors; that meant they went through vigorous schooling for six or eight _years_. They'd be equipped to know what was wrong with a fourteen year old boy.

The three others were silent as they fell into step behind her, and the started on the path that Ash had pointed out earlier in the day. The path to the hospital.


End file.
